The Internet infrastructure includes many software monitoring and interaction applications for detecting the habits of Internet users. Some of these applications may generally modify the display or user interface attempting to provide a customized or personalized appearance and interface to each user based on the detected information. Some applications monitor user activities by placing small files, called cookies, on accessing computers, which may later be read and identified when the same user returns to a compatible web site. Other, less invasive, applications monitor the web server, sensing, storing, and analyzing user activities or user-selected events. The goal of these customizing applications is to provide a more user-friendly interface to potential customers or clients in addition to attempting to provide a sense of personal service to individuals accessing a company""s web site.
Some applications also provide insight into the effectiveness of a web site""s design. For example, if an on-line index has been created without a jump feature, to allow jumping directly to entries beginning with certain letters, a monitoring application may provide data showing how frequently the scrolling functions, up and down, are used to locate desired material. With this information, the web site may be upgraded to ease the user""s burden of finding desired information.
Automated customizing and monitoring applications typically observe activities at a designated web server, counting the number of button or hyperlink clicks or events selected by its users. The web sponsor or the application may then determine to change the interface based on these frequency totals. For example, if it is determined that a hyperlink on the third-layer of a web site receives the highest number of clicks for any given time period, that hyperlink may be moved to the initial web page depending on its function. Furthermore, the application may calculate the top few features having the greatest number of hits or clicks and place those, as a group, onto an easily accessible web layer. However, using the frequency of clicks or events occurring at any given web site may generally lead to unreliable results.
An application that groups features by highest frequency totals for modifying a user interface must make an arbitrary choice as to which features or events to group together. The choice is arbitrary because, although the group of features or events may have the highest frequency totals out of all of the recorded events, the high overall total does not necessarily mean that there is a higher probability of a user triggering one of the events in the groupin relation to any of the others. In other words, the highest frequency totals do not necessarily mean there is a correlation between or among the grouped events.
Companies typically provide these web monitoring services to Internet businesses. A business desiring to monitor its web activity must then normally buy, not only the proprietary software of the service provider, but generally must also buy the monitoring services from the service provider. The service provider loads its software onto the business"" web server and then monitors the data from a service provider location. The provider will then usually analyze the data and implement or suggest any changes to the business"" user interface. Alternatively, the provider""s software may also be capable of changing the user interface based on the software""s analysis of the monitored data.
It would therefore be desirable to have a monitoring application that provides a statistically-based choice as to the groupings of related events or features on a web site.
It would also be desirable to have such a monitoring application available as a software product from which an Internet business could monitor and customize its own web user interface.
Another desirable factor would be to have such a software application with the capability of automatically customizing a user interface based on the statistical calculations of event probabilities.
The present invention is directed to a system and method for customizing user interfaces based on user-selected events. The system comprises an event log for tracking all user-selected events. Using the tracked events and a system processor, the system preferably calculates a first degree probability of each user-selected event occurring, and a second degree probability of the user-selected events having the same first degree probability. An analyzer looks at the second degree probability with respect to the first degree probability in order to preferably determine divisions of user-selected events having said same first degree probability. An interface assembler then preferably builds the user interface in response to the divisions of the user-selected events.
The inventive system operates through a method for customizing user interfaces in a monitored computing environment by monitoring user actions in the monitored computing environment. The system preferably calculates a first degree probability of each of the user actions and then preferably calculates a second degree probability the user actions. Groups of user actions having the same first degree probability are preferably created by analyzing the second degree probability with respect to said first degree probability. When the system receives an immediate user action, it preferably assembles the user interface responsive to the group of user actions in which the immediate user action is found. The system preferably chooses groups having the highest first degree probability where possible.
The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technical advantages of the present invention in order that the detailed description of the invention that follows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter which form the subject of the claims of the invention. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the conception and specific embodiment disclosed may be readily utilized as a basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out the same purposes of the present invention. It should also be realized by those skilled in the art that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. The novel features which are believed to be characteristic of the invention, both as to its organization and method of operation, together with further objects and advantages will be better understood from the following description when considered in connection with the accompanying figures. It is to be expressly understood, however, that each of the figures is provided for the purpose of illustration and description only and is not intended as a definition of the limits of the present invention.